White Noise
by Menthol Pixie
Summary: "No. No way. There's got to be a way to break it ourselves. I can't do a year of mime-Sam. And Sam's head is gonna explode if he can't talk, Bobby. We need to fix this."
1. Chapter 1

**White Noise**

Summary: "No. No way. There's got to be a way to break it ourselves. I can't do a year of mime-Sam. And Sam's head is gonna explode if he can't talk, Bobby. We need to fix this."

 _A/N: Set early Season 2_.

Chapter One

Sam is already dressed when Dean cracks his eyes open, even though the sun is only just starting to creep through the curtains, his hair damp and curling around his neck, darkening the shoulders of his shirt with drips. One elbow is propped on the motel table, hand tucked under his chin to support his head. The laptop is open in front of him but the screen-saver is on and Sam is staring off into space, his eyes distant. Dean turns his head to squint at the alarm clock until the red blurs resolve themselves into the numbers 6:23. Jesus.

"You already showered?" he asks, voice gravelly with sleep, and Sam jumps a little, startling out of what was probably an impressive brood. "How long have you been up?"

Sam shrugs at him, glances at the alarm clock and holds up four fingers, which could mean he's been awake since four AM or for the last four hours. It's too early for the effort of clarification though and both options make him feel guilty enough to sit up and scrub his hands down his face, regretfully wiping away the remnants of sleep. He can't blame the kid for wanting to get going, even if it is disgustingly early.

"All right, give me ten minutes," he sighs, throwing back the blankets. "I'll hit the shower and we can head out."

Sam nods eagerly and all but jumps to his feet, closing the laptop and reaching for it's case. He's obviously been itching to pack up and go for hours, desperate to continue the search for answers. Dean grabs his bag of toiletries and decides to be ready in five.

XXX

It feels like they only just left Bobby's place (probably because they pretty much did only just leave Bobby's place) but well, whatever is going on with Sam isn't wearing off, none of the curse-breakers they've tried have helped, and they can't hunt like this. Dean figured that out after getting nailed by a flying tree branch on account of an angry spirit and Sam not being able to yell 'duck'. So yeah, Bobby's it is. Time to get this sorted.

He has to admit – not to Sam, of course, what does he look like, a moron? - that is was kind of... nice, at first. Like, okay, okay, being cursed, if that's what this is, is never a good thing, but after all of Sam's attempts to get Dean to discuss his feelings over the last few weeks, some quiet was refreshing. After all, Sam can't try to talk to him about Dad if Sam can't talk, and Dean was privately glad for the reprieve and the distraction, even if research and witchcraft are two of his least favourite things in the world. He had consoled himself by setting Sam the task of reading up on all things weird and silence-related while he asked around to see if anyone let anything slip, and secretly enjoyed the quiet.

That is, until they passed the 'week and a day' milestone at which most spells burn themselves out, without so much as a whisper from Sam – just a lot of agitated pacing and sighing and finally something close to what Dean imagines a panic attack would look like, until he calmed the kid down by promising to call Bobby and plead for help.

Anyway, he didn't let on to Sam but he was getting more than a little freaked out by their lack of progress himself. He was well passed teasing Sam about his inability to talk – only well-timed, sophisticated quips like 'Burgers for lunch, Sam? Speak up if you disagree' or 'Strip club tonight? Silence means yes', of course – and watching Sam silently melt down in frustration had lost its charm sooner than he'd anticipated.

Honestly, Dean is starting to _really_ miss hearing Sam's voice. It's so _quiet_ in the Impala, even with the radio on in an attempt to drown it out. Dean is used to driving in silence, Sam sitting shotgun, sleeping or reading or just watching the road, but this is different. This silence feels like a prison, heavy and oppressive. It kind of makes him want to scream, just to reassure himself that he still can, like mute-ness might be contagious somehow, and shit, if it's getting to him this bad, who knows how crazy Sammy's going alone inside his head?

Dean glances across the bench-seat at his brother. Sam's head is currently propped against the window and his eyes are unfocused as he watches the road vanish beneath the Impala's wheels, probably thinking up a storm. Dean has started to become uncomfortably aware of how much he relies on Sam's voice. Kid has a million and one expressions that all mean different things from 'I'm coming down with something' to 'I'm going to strangle you if you don't shut up' and Dean knows all of them but reading Sam's mind is challenging when he's in brood-mode and, without being able to poke and prod until Sam breaks and composes a novel about what he's thinking, Dean is kind of at a loss.

Sam's not happy about losing his voice, of course, and the lack of insight into the cause is obviously frustrating the hell out of him – Sammy's research skills don't fail him often and Dean has caught him casting a few betrayed looks at the laptop over the last week, or slamming books shut without the general care Sam usually gives them – but mostly he's been pretty calm and focused, scribbling theories down in an old notebook for Dean to read and follow up on, sinking into research mode like he would with any other case. Is the silence suffocating him the way it is Dean? Does Sam feel that crazy urge to scream, only worse, because he can't?

"Hey," Dean says. Sam blinks out of his thoughts, turns his head and raises a questioning eyebrow. "You okay?"

Okay, that sounds lame. He can't blame Sam for the eye-roll and sarcastic thumbs up he gets in response (and how do you manage to make a thumb seem sarcastic, Sam, really? That's a talent). What was he expecting? Sam can't talk and Dean can't read Sam's scribbled notes while he's driving.

"Okay, I know, I'm sorry. I just..." What? What was he just? "You were kind of freaked out last night," he finishes awkwardly.

Sam turns back to the window, a flush reddening his cheeks before he ducks behind his hair. He shrugs. Great. Now they both feel awkward. Breaking the silence isn't helping like Dean thought it would.

"I mean, I get it," he stumbles on anyway."The spell didn't break on it's own. It sucks but it just means we'll have to break it ourselves. And that's no biggie, we'll find something in Bobby's library and you'll be talking my ear off again in no time." He offers Sam what he hopes is a reassuring smile but he may as well not have bothered because Sam's still hiding behind his hair and Dean gets the feeling that his attempts at comfort are just making the kid feel worse.

"I just don't want you getting lost in that gigantic brain of yours," he says quietly. "It's a long drive."

Sam shrugs again, which could mean pretty much anything. Dean sighs and turns the radio up.

XXX

Bobby does a bunch of stuff with herbs and incense that doesn't seem to do much other than make Sam sneeze a lot while he sits cross-legged on Bobby's kitchen floor inside a purification circle the older hunter had drawn up, but by the end of it Bobby has somehow managed to come to a few conclusions, though none of them are particularly new or useful.

"It's definitely a spell of some sort," he confirms, frowning down at Sam. "Old, by the looks of it. Not something your average New-Ager has up their sleeve."

Sam grimaces. Of course, old means complicated. Dean sees a lot of tedious research in his immediate future.

"Spells usually have a shelf-life though, right?" he presses. "So it could still wear off on it's own?"

"It could," Bobby agrees carefully. He begins packing away his stash of herbs, spread over the table. "Could be you just need to wait it out a little longer."

"But you don't think so," Dean surmises.

Bobby pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and sinks into it with a sigh. "It's possible it will break on it's own, given enough time. Maybe another week. Maybe when there's a full moon. Maybe not for a year."

"A _year_?" Dean repeats incredulously. Sam's mouth drops open in horror, eyes widening. He shoots Dean a panicked look that makes something in Dean's stomach clench painfully. "No. No way. There's got to be a way to break it ourselves. I can't do a year of mime-Sam. And Sam's head is gonna explode if he can't talk, Bobby. We need to fix this."

"Well, think then," Bobby orders gruffly. "If it's a spell, someone cast it, either on Sam or on something he's run into. A cursed object, maybe. Something set this off. We find out what, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to figure out how to reverse it."

They both look at Sam, who rolls his eyes and folds his arms across his chest with a huff, because, duh, it's not like he's going to pipe up with 'oh yeah, I totally bumped into a witch last week and forgot to mention it.'

Dean scrubs his hands down his face. "I told you, Bobby, we've gone over everything, retraced all our steps. There's nothing. He just woke up like this."

And hadn't that been a fun morning? Waking up to Sam frantically shaking him, all desperate gestures and panicked eyes, and there had been a lot of confusing miming before either of them calmed down enough to think of finding pen and paper.

Bobby adjusts his cap and gets to his feet. "I'll look through some of my books, see what I can figure out. You boys should get some rest, give me a holler if you think of anything. Or, well, get Dean to give me a holler, Sam."

It probably says something about how disheartened they are, the way they both give in to the gentle order and trudge off to bed. Dean lies in the dark and goes over everything he can think of from the days leading up to Sam's sudden case of mute-ness, for what might literally be the millionth time. He had grilled everyone from the motel clerk to the chick he spent five minutes flirting with at Starbucks. Sam had researched the town, the motel, the ghost they were there to hunt in the first place. When none of that turned up anything, they had crisped the corpse of the angry spirit and back-tracked to their previous hunt so that Dean could grill everyone there while Sam repeated his geeking out process and learnt everything there was to know, which was a whole bunch of nothing helpful.

There was a depressingly long list of potential enemies to be investigated but none that made likely suspects and, Dean has to admit, if there's anyone who can manage to get cursed by pure coincidence, it's definitely Sam. But if it is dumb luck – or lack of it – where the hell do they even start?

Dean stares at the ceiling. Not so long ago, he could've called Dad for help. Dad always came through, when it was important. And now his number sits in Dean's phone, pointless, nothing but a recorded message waiting on the other end, and Dean has so much he wants to say and no one he can say it to.

 **To Be Continued...**


	2. Chapter 2

**White Noise**

Chapter Two

Dean wakes up at some God-awful hour on the third night at Bobby's, his Sammy-senses tingling despite the lack of sound from the next bed. It takes a moment for him to realise that the silence, the absence of Sam's breathing in the dark, is what woke him. He looks over to Sam's bed, blinking as his eyes adjust to the darkness, and knows it's empty before he manages to focus on the rumpled sheets, blankets tossed aside, and fuck, Dean is tired, maybe Sam just got up for a piss or a glass of water or something, maybe he'll be back soon and Dean should just go back to sleep where he doesn't have to think about spells or Sam or the fact that Dad is gone...

Groaning to himself, Dean swings his legs off the bed. He stumbles his way out of the bedroom, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning as he conducts a brief search of Bobby's house before figuring out that Sammy's on the porch, curled up on the seat with his notebook in his lap, even though there's no one for him to write to. Maybe he anticipated Dean. Maybe he just doesn't like being without the only voice he has.

"What are you doing out here?" Dean asks as he sits down next to Sam. It's cold and Sam's arms are covered in goosebumps, dressed as he is in nothing but sweats and a t-shirt, but he doesn't seem to notice. He twists a pen around in his fingers without acknowledging Dean's presence, until Dean elbows him in the ribs (that's what you get for ignoring your brother when he's freezing his ass off hanging out outside with you at five in the freaking morning) and gestures at the notebook. "Come on, spill."

Sam shoots him a dirty look, rubbing his side pointedly, but he stops twiddling the pen and flips the notebook open to a fresh page.

 _It's getting worse_ , he writes in slow, careful letters, tilting the book towards Dean so he can see. Dean frowns at the words, trying to figure out what Sam means. He can't exactly get more mute, can he?

"What is?" he asks.

Sam thinks for a moment, then flips the notebook back to the first page, the start of their written conversations. He taps the page with his pen, then flips forward several pages and does it again. Dean frowns at the writing."What, your handwriting?" It does seem to get messier as the pages go on but it's not like Dean is handing out points for neatness. As long as he can read it, what does it matter?

Sam shakes his head. He turns back to the latest page.

 _Words_ , he writes slowly, _don't make sense_.

"Words don't make sense," Dean reads aloud, a sense of foreboding putting down roots in his gut. "What do you mean? You know what I'm saying, right?"

Sam shrugs. _Mostly_ , he writes. _I forget what words mean. Have to think_.

Dean stares down at the notebook in dismay. "Fuck."

Sam nods miserably. Dean elbows him again, gentler this time. "Hey. We're going to figure this out. We'll put it right, I promise."

Sam nods again but he looks far from convinced, biting his lip and avoiding Dean's eye. He twists his pen around in his fingers again and ducks behind his hair as he scribbles one more word.

 _Scared_.

Reading it is like a kick to the chest. Dean can't think of anything to say and what's the point of saying anything if Sam might not understand him? He doesn't know what to do but then Sam glances up at him from under all that hair and he looks so much like he did when he was four and had skinned knees or grazed palms and looked at his big brother like he had the power to fix everything, that Dean forgets about trying to find the right words and reaches out instead. He pulls Sam close and wraps him in his arms and holds him, and they stay like that until the sun starts to rise.

XXX

Two days later, Sam pushes away the book he's been staring at and drops his head into his hands. As far as Dean and Bobby can figure, he can still understand most of what they're saying but the written word has become indecipherable. It makes him restless, not being able to help with the research, and he takes to jogging around the car yard, when he's not pacing Bobby's house. Dean gets it; the kid needs some form of release, but the more time Sam spends alone, the more Dean worries. He's not sure why exactly, just... it feels like he's losing Sam, just like he lost Dad, and he can't figure out how to stop it.

They try, though. A lot. Bobby's books hold spell-breakers and counter-curses galore so when Sam isn't jogging or pacing or brooding, he's sitting in some form of magic circle while Bobby chants at him and burns nasty-smelling herbs. Dean tends to take over the pacing during these inevitably useless attempts at spell-breaking and he's pretty sure that, between him and Sam, Bobby's not going to have any carpet left by the time they figure this out.

"We _will_ find something," Dean promises, for what might actually be the hundredth time, while Sam dismally wipes off the sigils Bobby had traced onto his chest and neck with some kind of oil. "One of these spells has to work eventually."

Sam just sighs and pulls his t-shirt back on.

"Not necessarily," Bobby says grimly, after Sam is out of earshot. "We're working blind here, Dean. We don't know what spell we're trying to break, who cast it, or why. There's no guarantee that any of these spells will work."

"One of them will," Dean insists, because one of them has to. It just has to.

XXX

The problem is, Dean tore towns apart trying to figure this out and Bobby's library is brilliant but they're tearing that apart too and nothing is working. Dean does his best to keep Sam connected, reading out loud and asking him questions he can answer with nods or head-shakes to help him feel involved, but more and more Sam looks at him like he's speaking a foreign language, confused and lost and freaked out. Some time during the start of their second week at Bobby's Sam takes to curling up in the back seat of the Impala with Dean's cassettes playing in the tape deck. Dean figures that the rhythms are familiar even if the words have lost their meaning, and there's something about Sammy seeking comfort from the songs Dean usually annoys him with that makes Dean feel a confusing mix of heart-warmed and heart-broken.

"I can't take much more of this," he vents to Bobby after Sam has turned in for the night, drifting off towards the bedroom with a vague goodnight wave in Dean and Bobby's direction. "I'm losing him, Bobby. I don't think he understands a word I'm saying anymore."

Bobby rubs his eyes and reaches for his coffee mug. "I found a couple more things I can try in the morning." He downs the last of his coffee in one gulp. "We can rule out a cursed object, something like that would leave a trail we could follow. Sam must've had a run in with someone powerful, and they wiped his memory so he wouldn't remember who cursed him. I have some more memory spells..."

Dean tries to help, he really does, but he's too agitated to focus after days of staring at musty old books and getting nowhere, and he definitely doesn't share Sam's desire to run to blow off steam so finally he grabs his jacket and his keys and tells Bobby he'll be back in an hour.

Driving always helps when his thoughts are running too wild to tame. Drinking helps too, which is how he finds himself at the bar of a crappy little dive, nursing a beer and a bad mood.

The music is a little too jaunty for his liking and the beer isn't the greatest but it's quiet tonight, not much of a crowd, and he's glad for it. He just needs a moment, just needs to take a breath and have a drink before going back to Bobby's, where Sam's silence is so loud it's become deafening.

"Aren't you a ray of sunshine?" an insultingly cheerful voice teases from his left. Typical.

"Just having a drink," he says pointedly, without looking up from his beer, but the owner of the voice doesn't take the hint. Instead she slips onto the barstool beside his and crosses her – admittedly impressive, Dean notes from the corner of his eye – legs.

"That's what you said last time," she says.

That gets his attention. Dean looks over at the newcomer. Sandy blonde hair that sits straight on her shoulders, blue eyes and a smile that reveals slightly crooked teeth. She's dressed in yellow, holding a bright blue cocktail, and is completely unfamiliar.

Which isn't really a surprise. "Look, I wasn't in a great place last time I was here," he says, hoping that will make up for the lack of recognition. He came here a few times while they were staying at Bobby's after Dad... after the accident, mostly so he could get blind drunk without Sam breathing down his neck and pressing him to talk and, man, what he wouldn't give right now to hear Sam bitch about how drinking his feelings is bad for him.

"I remember," the woman says, not looking at all offended at being forgotten. She sips her drink, smiles at him, and asks, "How are you and Sam now?"

She says it casually, without a hint of malice or malevolence, but the hairs on the back of Dean's neck are suddenly standing to attention, a prickly feeling of unease sliding down his spine. He stares at her, a whiskey-smudged memory nudging at the edge of his mind.

"What did you do?"

She raises an eyebrow, infuriatingly coy. "Do?"

"Don't play games." He remembers now, remembers being sloppy drunk and ranting to a stranger about how Sam wouldn't leave him alone, how he wanted to talk about his feelings and Dean's feelings and Dean had wished, fuck, Dean had wished _out loud_ for the kid to just shut up for once. "What are you?"

"Someone who gave you what you wanted." The woman drops the act and the smile. She leans in conspiratorially. "It _is_ what you wanted, isn't it? You made yourself pretty clear."

Dean's mouth opens and closes soundlessly three times before he manages to find a response. "I was drunk. I was just letting off steam. I never wanted..." He falters. This is on him. _He_ did this to Sam.

"To be ignored?" the woman who is definitely not just a woman suggests, too innocently. "Shut out? To feel like no matter what you say, your brother isn't listening?" She sips her drink again. "Sounds lonely."

"I... you..." Dean's stomach sinks even further as her meaning settles in. "What _are_ you?" he asks again, unable to keep the horror from his voice.

His stammering makes her smile again. "Perceptive."

"Fix it," Dean blurts. What she is matters less than what she does next. "Fix it _now_. Sam doesn't deserve this. You can't just do this to him."

She meets his gaze evenly. "Who said anything about doing this to _Sam_?" She reaches across the bar and rests her hand on his. "This lesson is for you, Dean Winchester."

"Please." Dean isn't above begging when it comes to his brother. "Please, give him his voice back. I get it now, okay? I learnt my lesson." It's a struggle to keep his voice from breaking. Is this really how Sam has felt since the accident? In desperate need of a brother who grows more distant by the day? Guilt churns Dean's stomach, squirming amongst the grief and fear and anger that has plagued him since Dad left him with an impossible burden that Sam's presence reminds him of every single day. Pushing him away was so much easier than facing everything, or at least, he had thought it was. But he had left Sam alone, shut him out, and now he was losing him completely. "Please, I just... I need him."

The woman squeezes his hand gently, then releases it and slips off her barstool. "I think you should tell him that," she says.

"But Sam can't-" Dean starts to protest, trailing off as he turns to find that he's speaking to thin air. He spins in his seat, searching the bar but the woman has vanished, her empty glass the only sign of her existence, and Dean still doesn't know what she was, but maybe...

Hope swelling in his chest, Dean tosses some cash on the bar and all but sprints to the Impala, peeling out of the parking lot with a screech of rubber. Impatience stretches every minute of the drive into what feels like hours but finally he pulls up outside Bobby's place and throws the car into park. He leaves the drivers door and Bobby's front door wide open as he bolts into the house and up the stairs, ignoring Bobby's startled spluttering from the library. He slams his hand against the light-switch in the room Bobby set up for him and Sam so many years ago and all but throws himself onto Sam's bed as brightness floods the room.

"Sam! Wake up, Sam!" He grabs Sam by the shoulders and drags his startled, blinking brother upright so he can look him in the eye. "Sam, I need to talk to you. I. Need. To. Talk. To. You." He says it as firmly and deliberately as he can, enunciating clearly, and God, please let this work, otherwise he just woke his bewitched little brother up to yell gibberish in his face and that's probably not going to be great for the kid's already shaky mental state, so it has to work, it has to work because if it doesn't he has no idea what will, and he means it, he swears he means it, he'll talk, they can have as many chick-flick moments as Sam wants, as long as this works.

Sam squints against the sudden brightness, sleep-dazed and confused, and Dean feels his heart sink but then -

"Dean?" Sam asks sleepily.

They both freeze, Dean's hands clamped around Sam's shoulders, one of Sam's hands half-raised to shield against the light. "Dean," he says again. His eyes widen, his hand drops and he stares at Dean in astonishment, all traces of exhaustion gone. "Dean. _Dean_. Oh my God, Dean, what did you do?"

Dean almost collapses under the weight of his relief. He throws his arms around his brother and pulls him close, hugging him so tight that Sam squeaks and it's so fucking awesome to hear sound come out of Sammy's mouth again. So. Fucking. Awesome.

"I'll tell you everything," Dean promises.

END


End file.
